ERIC ED270778: Rogers' Typograph Versus Mergenthaler's Linotype: The Push and Shove of Patents and Priority in the 1890s.

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ED 270 778

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TITLE

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NOTE

PUB TYPE

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CS 209 832

Goble, Corban

Rogers* Typograph Versus Merganthaler * s Linotype: The
Push and Shove of Patents and Priority in the
1890s.
4 Aug 86

34p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass
Communication (69th, Norman, OK, August 3-6,
1986) .

Reports - Research/Technical (143) —
Speeches/Conference Papers (150)

MF01/PC02 Plus Postage.

*Court Litigation; ^Inventions; ^Patents; Printing;
*Technological Advancement

*Compositors (Printing and Publishing); Nineteenth
Century History; ^Typography

ABSTRACT

The interplay of historical, technological, legal,
and economic events that surrounded the strident controversies
involving two competing 1890s composing machines — John R. Rogers *s
Typograph and Ottmar Mergenthaler*s Linotype — is examined in this
pa->er. Using patent copies, court documents, trade journal reports
and newspaper articles of the era, and press association accounts,
the paper identifies and analyzes the roles of the combatants, their
machines and patents, and the underlying forces involved in
technological change. The paper first introduces briefly the economic
and social concepts that had a bearing on the Mergenthaler-Rogers
controversy and on the diffusion of the Linotype. The paper recounts
the technologir:al progress of typography from Gutenburg*s movable
type through the 1890s, and provides biographical information on
Rogers and Mergan thaler. This is followed by accounts of the
injunction brought by Merganthaler*s company against the Rogers* s
machine, on the claim that the letter infringed upon the Mergenthaler
patents, and of the competition ensuing from introduction of Rogers *s
Typograph. The paper then discusses an impression-type composer
developed by J.H. Shuckers, with whose company Rogers subsequently
merged, and the counter- infringement suit brought against
Mergenthaler for use of Shuckers *8 spaceband mechanism. Finally, the
paper discusses Mergenthaler * s acquisition of the Rogers firm in 1895
and the particulars of the purchase, as well as Rogers *s subsequent
work in the Mergenthaler organization and Shuckers *s obscurity once
the patent for his spaceband mechanism was bought out. (Copies of ads
for the two machines are included. ) (hth)

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OttK;e ol Educational R»»e«rch arxJ ImpfOveirent

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION
CENTER (ERIC)

^This document h»$ been reproduced as
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Originating it
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History Division

ROGERS* TYPOGRAPH VERSUS MERGENTHALER'S LINOTYPE:

THE PUSH AND SHOVE OF PATENTS AND PRIORITY IN THE 1890s

by

Corban Goble

Assistant Professor
Department of Journalism
Western Kentucky University
Bowling Green, KY 42101

"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS
MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

Corban Goble

TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) "

a

rO
(T

^ and Mass Communication Annual Convention in Norman, Oklahoma, August 4, 1986.

Presented to the History Division at the Association for Education in Journalism

ERIC

This des':riptive monograph examines tne interplay of historical, tech-
nological, legal and economic events that surrounded the strident controversies
involving two competing 1890s composing machines: John R. Rogers* Typograph and
Ottmar Mergenthaler * s Linotype.

The distinct role of the Rogers machine as a potential deterrent to
the successful adoption of the Linotype in the 1890s has long remained
obscured in federal court reports and other documents. And Rogers* involvement
with the later development of the Linotype itself has been largely unremembered
by an industry that has practically passed beyond the hot-metal composing
process first made feasible by the Linotype. By the use of patent copies,
court documents, trade journal reports and newspaper articles of the era, and
press association accounts, the author has sought to identify and analyze the
roles of the combatants, their machines and patents, and the underlying forces
involved in technological change.

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The research, it should be noted, uses in part accounts appearing in
Inland Printer , Journalist and Fourth Estate in the 1890s. These trade journals

Allan Forman's Journalist in particular were prone to take sides in the

mechanical controversies. Like the printers themselves, the editors were often
skeptical that any machine could replace the skill and adeptness of hand com-
positors. And they had their favorites. Even with this sort of a disclaimer of
exact credibility, the use of these sources helps re-create the conflicting
viewpoints that abounded in that era. Future research into the papers — should
they be available — of some of the principals might allow additional insights.

Patterns, Factors and Concepts

From a mere antiquarian perspective, the conflicts could be said to
concern the question of who invented what first. Mergenthaler , Rogers and a
third inventor, J. W. Schuckers, — apparently independently of each other —
patented machines or devices that would allow printing type or lines to be
set mechanically. Infringement suits in the 1890s upheld Mergenthaler over
Rogers. Yet the Mergenthaler company, in 1895, bought out Rogers* spaceband
rights in order to maintain the Linotype's singular integrity at a time when
that machine was being widely adopted in U.S. composing rooms.

Certainly the patented ideas of Mergenthaler, Rogers and Schuckers
constituted highly significant advances in composing procedures, and the
patent and legal systems documented their inventiveness . Yet their ideas did
not generate in a vacuum, but from a pattern evident in the history of tech-
nology: that of adapting complementary technologies already in place. ^ Thus
Mergenthaler, for example, built upon typefounders* single matrices for the
idea of using single circulating matrices in his Linotype. Later improvements

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to the machine demonstrated this progressive pattern.

A great deal more, however, exists below the antiquarian surface. The
rise of the Linotype and the concurrent defeat of the Typograph illustrate the
economic importance of a vital new technology. Thus the controversies were
embedded within a wide range of factors linked not only to technological changes
but also to economic considerations, principally those that would allow expan-
sion and greater productivity at U.S. newspapers. The Mergenthaler-Rogers con-
flicts and their lengthy progression through the court system involved the
question of who was going to control the use and spread of the hot-metal com-
posing process and, indeed, who was going to profit from the critical course
of the marketplace.

Conceptually, the adoption of the Linotype can be considered a classic

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example of Everett Rogers* decision process for the diffusion of innovations.
Awareness was demonstrated by word-of-mouth reports and articles about the
machine(s), interest by discussions at press association meetings, evaluation
by inspecting the machines and gaining reports on their success and failures,
small-scale trials at several large daily newspapers, and then the adoption-
rejection decisions. Although some dailies temporarily rejected Linotypes be-
cause of their early defects, because of publishers* loyalties to hand com-
positors and because of the costs and uncert;%inties of a new process, most
(if not all) of them eventually adopted the hot-metal composing process.

It can be said that the Mergenthaler company geared its activities
to gain a favorable adoption decision. Certainly newspapers and commercial
printers in the late 1880s and into the 1890s were wary of an unproved device
even though some visionaries viewed mechanical composition as a way to lower
costs, speed up production and increase profits. Hand compositors perceived the

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"mechanical wonder" as a threat to their well-entrenched livelihood. And manu-
facturers of early machines that mechanically set already-cast printer's type
believed the Linotype would severely harm their fledging businesses.

An explication of the Mergenthaler-Rogers controversies illuminates
the interdependence of technology and the wider social and economic factors
that surrounded thetn. Certainly the arrival of the Rogers machine posed a dis-
tinct threat to the Mergenthaler Printing Company's beginning efforts to domi-
nate newspaper composing rooms. Why and how that company proceeded to defeat
the Rogers machine, and why and how it bought out Rogers' spaceband rights in
1895, demonstrate the extent to which economic factors prevailed in the mar-
ketplace and in the diffusion of the innovative Linotype.

The Set tin

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The process of composing printer's type existed practically unchanged

for nearly 400 years after Johann Gutenberg invented movable type in Germany in

the 1450s. For centuries, the hand compositor stood before the type cases as he

or she picked up each leaden character in order anu placed it in the composing

stick. In the succeeding justifying process, spaces were added between words so

that the type line's right and left sides would be even. After use, the type was

distributed by hand to the proper compartments in the case so that it could be

used again for the next news article or printing job.

The first efforts to set type mechanically are believed to have begun

3

in Great Britain. Printing historians generally consider Dr. William Church
as the first inventor of a new process. A Vermonter trained in medicine. Church
patented a typesetter design in England in 1822. His composing^ system ideas
apparently were too advanced for his day, for no records have been found to

to indicate that his typesetter was ever built.

American invention began with William H. Mitchel's 1850 Composer, a

device arrai>ged somewhat like a pianoforte, and Timothy Alden's 1857 Typesetter

Both machines, like many others that followed, utilized keyboards, assembly

channels and precast foundry type that was usually nicked on the side to allow

distribution to the proper storage channel. Alden*s machine seemed so promising

to the New York Times that it ordered 12 of them in 1862. The newspaper itself

called the machine " the invention of the Nineteenth Century** and predicted that

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a "new era in newspaper publishing will date from the day of introduction." No
confirmation could be found to indicate that che Aldens were actually used (or
even installed) at the Times .

After the Civil War's end, new efforts arose to perfect a composing
machine as the United States moved into a growth era for the print media.
Enthusiasm for developing such a machine was likely stimulated by the New York
World 's declaration that "it is discreditable to the inventive genius of this
country that the one great mechanical want of the time [a mechanical composer]
is still unsupplied." In its article reprinted in Scientific American in 1869,
the World reported that newspapers were prevented from "giving their readers
the literal 'volumes' of matter they would gladly do fiom day to day were they
not hampered by the delays and cost of composition."^ Although the World pro-
posed to establish a prize fund of $500,000, no documents have been located to
confirm that the money was raised or that any prize was awarded to an inventor.

Composing machines developed between 1850 and the mid-1890s fell into
three main categories: the typesetters, the impression-type composers and the
linecasters. The typesetters sought to duplicate in some way the work of the
hand compositor. This class included the Mitchel and Alden machines as well as

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those developed by Joseph Thome, James W. Paige (with Mark Twain's backing)
and others. They all used type that had been cast at typef oundries and required
up to three people for their operation* Although many patents were granted for
the typesetters, their use generally was limited to weekly newspaper and some
book publishers. The adoption of nhc Linotype gradually led to their obsoles-
cense, and by the 1920s they were practically extinct.

The quest for cheaper and speedier type composition stimulated inventors
to develop two other processes in the 1880s: the impression-type composers and
the linecasters. The impression composers generally required the pressing of
hard type dies into a soft material from which lines were cast. Because of im-
perfect results, none of the several composers of this category ever became a
commercial success. Yet both Mergenthaler and Rogers used that process as an
intermediate stepping stone in the development of their linecasters. Machines
of this latter category — the Linotype being the principal example — were operated
by temporarily assembling type matrices (or molds). Hot lead was forced into the
character depressions of the matrices so that a casting of each line could be
produced. The linecasters used adjustable mechanical spacing devices to justify
each line, and the mechanical distribution of the matrices allowed them to be
used over and over.

The controversies examined in this paper concern not only the invention
of the linecasting process but also the creation of the justifying mechanism
known in the trade as the spaceband. The antagonists, of course, were Mergen-
thaler and Rogers, and to a lesser degree, J. W. Schuckers.

Mergenthaler and Rogers were practically the same age, but no evidence
exists to indicate that they ever met. Both, though, were inventors at heart.
Born in Germany in 1854, Mergenthaler trained as a watchmaker before coming to

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the United States to work at a cousin^s machine shop, first at Washington, D.C.,
and then Baltimore. His first introduction to the problems of type composition
came when he remodeled a defective lithographic printing machine for another
inventor in 1876. By 1883, he had invented his impression-type First Band
Machine, a none-too-successful antecedent of the Linotype. Mergenthaler
developed successive new models so that by 1886 he was building the prototype of
the Blower Linotype first used coitmiercially by the New York Tribune in July of
that year. Mergenthaler was backed at that time by a syndicate of prominent
metropolitan publishers anxious to use and promote a successful machine. The
roll of first investors included Whitelaw Reid of the Tribune, W. N. Haldeman
of the Louisville Courier-Journal , Victor Lawson and Melville Stone of the
Chicago News , W. H. Rand of Rand, McNally & Company of Chicago, Stilson Hutchins
of the Washington Post and William Henry Smith of the Associated Press. ^ At one
point in the early days, the syndicate members granted themselves exclusivity
privileges for the use of the machines in their respective cities.

The first Linotypes worked none too well in syndicate composing rooms,
and by early 1888 syndicate president Reid told the company stockholders that
the machines "so far had been a source of materially increased expense to every
newspaper that has really attempted to use them.**^ Strained relations between
Mergenthaler and Reid over the machine's deficiencies, the costs of the manu-
facturing plant at Baltimore and personnel polices led Mergenthaler to resign as
the factory manager.

Reid moved the Linotype factory to Brooklyn, New York, so that he couid
give it closer supervision. Mergenthaler, now severed from the machine and com-
pany that bore hi s name (Mergenthaler Printing Company), re— established his
machine shop in Baltimore. He set about improving tlie Linotype on his own.

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developing new and improved .nodels that were eventually manufactured by the
Brooklyn operation. Mergenthaler , though, was never reconciled to the Brooklyn
leadership, and he died from tuberculosis at 45 in 1899, embittered to the end
over the way he and his invention had been treated by the then-prosperous

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organization then styled the Mergenthaler Linotype Company.

Rogers, the Typograph inventor (not the same as the later Lu-'.low Typo-
graph), was born in Illinois in 1856 and moved to Kentucky the next year when
his parents helped establish the school that became Berea College. His interest
in type composition was likely piqued by youthful experiences as a hand composi-
tor at Berea. Rogers' college courses at Berea and Oberlin (Ohio) prepared him

Q

for teaching Greek and physics and for mechanical engineering. He formulated a
design for an impression-type composing system during the years he served as
superintendent of schools at Lorain, Ohio. Patented in 1888, his system required
three machines: one for preparing soft metal blanks, one for composing and then
impressing the character dies into the blanks, and the third for casting the
leaden lines. Two years later, Rogers patented his Typograph linecaster, a
single machine that cast slugs or lines of type similar to those produced on the
Linotype .

The third participant in the controversy was J. W. (Jacobs William)
Schuckers (c. 1831-1901), one of the few composing machine inventors of the era
with a practical printing background. His first newspaper work began at the age
of 15 in the composing room of the Wooster (Ohio) Republican . In 1859 he was
employed as a printer at the Cleveland Leader . Subsequently he became a clerk
at the U.S. Treasury, the private secretary of Salmon P. Chase v*ien he was Secretary
of the Treasury, a beginning law student, a biogr.'^pher of Chase, and an 1879
patentee of an impression-type composing machine. A more impor ant invention,

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though, was his later mechanism designed to justify type lines.

The controversies described in this paper arose over inventor's patents,
the "letters" issued by the federal government to grant to an inventor the ex-
clusive right to make, use or sell an invention for a specific period of time.
Legal action in patent litigation generally took the form of either an inter-
ference proceeding or an infringement suit. Interference proceedings vere origi-
nated in the Patent Office to determine the priority of the invention between
claimants. The legal path to settlement of the "first inventor" question usually
involved several levels of appeal before resolution. Infringement suits were
filed in the federal court system when a litigant claimed that there had been
unlawful manufacture, use or sale of a patented article (or machine). The
judge's issuance of an injunction (either temporary or permanent) would bar
the manufacture, use or sale of the infringing device. Various appeals could
delay the final settlement of these suits for years.

The Typof^raph and the Preliminary Injunction
Sometime in 1889, Rogers introduced his linecasting Typograph that had
been built at a Cleveland factory. As on the Linotype, the Typograph operator
assembled matrices preparatory to the casting of a line of type in hot lead
that quickly cooled. Mergenthaler » s matrices were small rectangular pieces of
brass that circulated though the machine with the help of an ingenious distri-
buting system. Rogers' linecaster, though, used long matrix bars positioned on
wires that formed an elliptical frame. As the Typograph's keys were pressed,
the matrices slid down the wires to the assembly and casting area. After the
casting, the operator tipped the frame backwards to return the matrices to their
original positions. This procedure caused a brief interruption in composition at

10

the end of each line.^^ On the Linotype, the distribution proceeded automatically.

During the eight years of the Typograph*s development, Rogers apparently knew

12

nothing about the efforts of Mergenthaler or Schuckers.

Both Machines used mechanical spacing devices for justifying the line
so that the margins would line up. Rogers' machine utilized an expandable three-
piece disk. The Linotype, on the other hand, used a double-wedge device for
spreading out the space between words. Mergenthaler ' s use of this device, even
though he had patented it, later became a crucial element in patent litigation.

February 1890 was an important date for both machines and their inven-
tors. Mergenthaler ' s improved (Square Base) model was demonstrated in New York

City, and the company reportedly received orders "for several hundred machines*'

13

within a few months. The company, it seemed, was on its way to revolutionize
the printing industry. In that month, though, members of the American Newspaper
Publishers Association (ANPA) learned of Rogers' machine and its early prospects
for solving a long-sought need. G. F. Prescott of the Cleveland Plain Dealer
advised the ANPA convention delegates that the Rogers was " the machine, notwith-
standing the Mergenthaler or any other logotype machine." He urged publishers
in this national organization not to invest their money in Mark Twain's type-
setter or the Mergenthaler until they had seen the Rogers. Publishers who had
viewed the machine in Cleveland told their compatriots that they were impressed
by the Typograph's simplicity and by the fact that it used gravity for assembling
the matrices (instead of the air blast used on the Blower Linotypes).

When Mergenthaler company officials learned of the Rogers machine, the
counsel, Philip T. Dodge, went to Cleveland to investigate. Dodge soon dis-
patched to the Rogers firm a legal notice that its machine infringed upon the
Mergenthaler patents and that the new device was a "palpable imitation of the

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leading features" of the Linotype. Dodge warned that his company "will proceed
at once against you in the courts" on attempts "to sell or publicly operate any
machine which trespasses upon their rights. "^^

The Rogers company ignored the notice and, in the words of an affidavit
from Mergenthaler president Lemon G. Hine, "declared their intention to manu-
facture and lease their said machines . . . and offer [them] for use by the
printing trade. "^^ The Mergenthaler company followed the notice by publishing
warning advertisements in the June 1890 issues of the trade magazines Inland
Printer and the Journalist . The public was cautioned that "us^ of any machine
which casts, as a substitute for movable type, linotypes or type bars . . . will
render the user liable to a suit for infringement."^^ (See page 31.)

The notices did not deter Rogeis and his backers from introducing the
machine. In fact, a report in the Journalist indicated that the company had re-
ceived orders for 600 machines, a figure that seems unreliable and cannot be
18

substantiated. The Typr^graph was exhibited at Joseph Pulitzer's New York World
in September 1890. Through an ANPA bulletin, newspaper officials learned that
eight pages of the a Sunday World had been set up on the Typograph. "In per-
forming the work it was run 125 hours without any interruption and with no

19

appearance of ill effects." Scientific American reported that several New York
daily publishers had "made arrangements to introduce the Rogers [as well as the
Mergenthaler] machines into their composing rooms. Although Typographs may
have been installed at newspapers other th an the Wor Id, no document ing reports
have been found.

Rogers mounted a sales campaign that fall just as the Mergenthaler
company abandoned its exclusivity arrangements and was delivering the first of
its improved model to newspapers outside the original syndicate. One campaign

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element was a New York Tiiries endorsement highly favorable to the Typograph. The

Times at that point used no linecasttrs, but the article stated that 50 lypo-

graphs would be installed there. Furthermore, the Times writer said publishers

from Boston to St. Louis had visited Rogers' factory and left orders "for about

21

nine hundred machines.*' Publishers were clearly interested in machine composi-
tion, but the extent of those orders was likely overstated so as to impress
them as they considered the new technology. A second element of the Rogers cam-
paign was a low-key advertisement in the Journal ist titled ^'Publishers Should
See the Rogers Typograph." The machine could again be seen at the Pulitzer
Building. The company said it guaranteed its patents as well as a composition

speed of "not less than 3,000 ems per hour," a figure comparable to early Lino-

22

type results.

Inventor Mergenthaler , as might be expected, was highly critical of the
Typograph, calling it "the interloper" and "the pirate." In his Biography (an
often critical autobiography), he described Rogers' invention as a "compara-
tively ineffective machine, a bold and barefaced imitation of the linotype."

As to its introduction, he said the machine had been "advertised with as much

23

energy and hornblowing as Barnum's Circus or Higgins Laundry Soap."

The Mergenthaler firm would naturally view the arrival of a near com-
petitor with some alarm, especially since it too was seeking an entree into
the nation'? composing rooms. But its strong adversarial weapons were the Mergen-
thaler patents, and the company went to great lengths and expense through the
years to protect them.

The cumulative effect of the Rogers promotion led Mergenthaler officials

to instigate infringement proceedings in a New York federal district court in
24

late 1890. An extensive array of affidavits from Mergentha^-r officials and

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Linotype users formed ^he basis of the initiating document submitted by the
company. President Mine stated that about 170 Linotypes were then in use and
that the company was constructing 200 more. Mine said he had seen the Rogers
machine at the World casting "linotypes from molten metaT' in a matter similar
to the Mergenthaler machine. He said he had been told that orders had been re-
ceived for "several hundred" machines to be installed in large numbers at New

25

York City newspaper offices.

Mergenthaler, who identified himself in his affidavit as a mechanic and
i)^strument maker, stated that he had spent 14 years developing his machino. He
said that at the time his machines "were given to the public there was no other
machine in use, or before the public, having the same end in view." MergeT^^haler
also inspected the Rogers machine in New York, finding that it operated on the
same general plan as his. He asserted that the Rogers was an "imitation of my
own, and if permitted to enter the market, [it would represent] an invasion of

9 A

my patents and an injury to my business, and that of my [patent] assigns."

Affidavits from publishers and composing superintendents at the Courier-
Journal , the New York Tribune and the Providence Journal stressed the "sharp
new type" produced by the Linotype for each newspaper issue, reduced expendi-
tures for foundry type, lowered composition costs and reduced composition
time

The Mergenthaler interests were upheld by Federal Judge Henry Lacombe
in his ruling of March 1891. He issued a preliminary injunction restraining
the Press Publishing Company (the World * s publishing company) from using the
Rogers. In this case. National Typographic Company e t al. v. New York Typo-
graph Conpany et al. , A6 F. 114 (1891),^^ the judge held that Mergenthaler ' s machine
had been built under a foundation (or basic) patent that should be broadly

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construed. He based his decision upon Mergenthaler ' s claim in his 1885 patent,
No. 317,828, for a machine combining the composing and casting of individual
matrices. (Mergenthaler had assigned his patents to the National Typographic
Company, a predecessor company.)

Lacombe acknowledged that the Rogers machine "may be lighter, smaller,
cheaper, more easily operated, and more efficient." But that was immaterial, he
wrote, if the Mergenthaler "linotype" is covered by a foundation patent and if
that machine "embodies a combination wholly new in the printing art, which marks
the first great step in advance taken for over 400 years." The patent's validity
was strengthened, che judge stated, by the investment of over $1 million in fac-
tories and machinery as well as the Linotype's use at newspapers with large cir-
29

culations.

After the injunction was announced, the ANPA advised members that the
decision, unless reversed, "practically prevents the manufacture and use of all
other machines known at the present time, which cast a one line type bar."'^^
Although the ANPA could not predict the future, its forecast held true in the
United States until after other basic Linotype patents expired in 1909.

At the time this infringement suit was before the court, the Typograph
was illustrated and described in Inland Printer . The machines could be rented
for $1 for each working day and $300 annually tor weekly newspapers, with the
company agreeing to keep them in repair. The Typograph used a Remington key-
board familiar to typewriter operators (in contrast to the Linotype's "etaoin"
arrangement). The machine weighed only 450 pounds, considerably less than the

Linotype's ton. Changes of type size and line length required a down time of
3 1

about 20 minutes. The Linotype sold for $3,000, while the Typograph was
32

priced at $2,500.

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Apparently in response to the preliminary injunction, the Rogers com-
pany withdrew in May 1891 from the Pulitzer Building and shipped all its
machines back to Cleveland. Journalist editor Allan Forman regretted seeing

this action taken **because it looks as if one of the most important elements of

33

the competition in mechanical composition would be constricted." He was right.

The Rogers company, in the meantime;, sought other avenues. It estab-
lished factories in Canada and Germany, where its patents were not affected by
the Lacombe decision.

The Rogers Typograph, as a combination machine, earned one further

moment of glory in the United States. It was declared the winner in the six-day

trials conducted for type composing machines by the ANPA in late 1891. The

34

evaluating committee decided that the Typograph

produced the best and the most economical results. Its simplicity of con-
struction was so great that it was set up ready for running in ninety
minutes. For five consecutive working days no machinist or party than the
operator had anything to do with the machine, and it ran smoothly, with
scarcely a moment's interruption for the entire period of the test.

So here the Typograph was the v/inner over its more prominent rival, the Lino-
type, even though the Mergenthaler company had won an injunction barring the
Rogers machine on infringement grounds. The contest itself was widely reported
in the press and served to emphasize to publishers that the era of machine
composition had already arrived.

Rogers, though, was following another ploy. In 1892 the Rogers Typo-
graph Company of New York combined with the Electric Typographic Company to
form the new Rogers Typographic Company. Through this consolidation, the Rogers
forces gained the right to an electric typographic machine and to J. W.

Schuckers* double-wedge spaceband, an acquisition that was to have a profound

35

effect on the Linotype's future.

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Schuckers and His Spaceband

Before the history of the merged Schuckers-Rogers venture is reported,
the background of the Schuckers mechanism will be related. Schuckers'
impression-type composer was not a significant invention. His Mechanism for
Justifying Composed Lines of Type was. This device, designed to work in con-
junction with his composer, became important to the Linotype's history because
it included "justifying bars" to provide equalized spacing for words in the
line. The bar used a wedge and a wedge plate tapered in opposite directions.
Schuckers, then living in Philadelphia, filed his patent application on
27 February 1885. Accounts of the invention indicate that no machine using its
features was ever placed in production.

Forty-nine days after Schuckers' filing, Mergenthaler submitted his
patent application for the second version of his Second Band Machine. To accom-
plish justification of its lines, Mergenthaler devised his "space-bars" con-
sisting "each of two wedge-like portions tapered in opposite directions . . .
united by a dovetail sliding connection." Mergenthaler ' s patent. No. 345,525,
was issued 13 July 1886, and Linotypes built subsequently used this vital
spaceband to justify the line. (See page 31.)

The Patent Office delayed issuance of Schuckers' patent for seven years
while it was revolving the interference claims entered both by Mergenthaler
and by Schuckers and his assignee, the Electric Typographic Company, over the
priority of the spaceband concept. The Patent Office's examiner of interferences
finally ruled in late 1891 that Schuckers was the first invent or .

That ruling did not ruffle Mergenthaler ' s president Hine, then in his
last month in office. The decision, he said, was "not of the slightest account
to us, except so far as regards machines already manufactured and delivered."

18

17

He told the New York Times the decision would have no immediate effect because
the company would be appealing it. He asserted, incorrectly as it turned out,
that the "double wedge of Schuckers is no longer of the slightest necessity in

the Mergenthaler machine." With bravado, Hine said the company owned other

37

devices "equally practical."

About this time the Schuckers owners (who may have even then included

Rogers) began to agitate Mergenthaler officials by hinting at infringement suits

over the use of the spaceband. Those innuendos prompted Journal ist editor

Forman to write that the Mergenthaler people "will now have an opportunity to

see how it is themselves, so to speak, and taste the sweets of injunction."

Because the double-wedge spaceband was a Mergenthaler strong point, Forman said,

"things are looking squally" for the company. An injunction would be a "source

of great inconvenience to publishers [with Linotypes] if the Schuckers people

38

should take a notion to make trouble." Publishers, of course, would not

want their use of the Linotype (and production of their newspapers) threatened

or halted by infringement suits.

Formar later said the Mergenthaler people claimed they "have their pockets

full of justifying devices which are better." But those who had seen them had

asserted that the "justifying spaces have a confusing habit of getting soldered

together in casting the slugs so that they have to be distributed with a

39

hanimer. This mitigates against rapid composition." In normal operation, the
spacebands would separate automatically from the matrices and rriturn to the
spaceband box to be ready for re-use.

The Mergenthaler company did what Hine said it would as it appealed
the damaging ruling to the Patent Office's examiner in chief and then to the
commissioner of patents. In both instances Schuckers* priority was sustained.

19

18

His Mechanism patent, No. 476,306, was issued in May 1892, seven years after his
original filing. Two months later the Rogers and Schuckers interests merged.

Rogers and Schuckers Together

In the merged Rogers Typographic Company, inventor Rogers became the

mechanical director. Now seeking to salvage his composing machine business,

Rogers developed further the impression-type composing system based on his 1888

patent. He marketed it, ?nd an 1893 Inland Printer adver cisement described this

new-style Rogers Typograph as a "line-of-type making machine which will save you
41

money." It did not state that this Typograph was now really three machines, so
arranged to avoid the strictures of the 1891 preliminary injunction thit
restrained Rogers from combining all functions in one rachine. Again advertising
in Inland Printer , the Rogers company said a battery of 10 impression-type

machines at the Detroit Journal reportedly saved that newspaper 50 percent in

42

labor costs over equivalent hand composition. (See page 32.)

Delegates to the 1893 ANPA convention in New York received copies of a

Detroit Journal issue using the Rogers process as well as an invitation from

the Rogers company to see the machines operating in Detroit. Publishers,

seemingly, were not convinced, and one delegate spoke negatively about the

Rogers system. F. Fayram of the Detroit Free Press asserted that the ^'average

product of [the Journal machines] does not begin to compare with the Mergen-

thaler [product of the Free Press ].*' His criticism noted the requirement for

43

three machines for composition. It is doubtful that this Rogers system was
installed at many newspaper offices. By the end of 1892, Linotypes were already
installed in 24 states and the company was growing with a surge of orders.

In mid-1893 the preliminary injunction barring the use of the combina-

20

19

tion Rogers Typograph was made permanent. In Mergenthaler Linotype Company v.
Press Publishing Company et al. , 57 F. 502 (1893), Judge Alfred Coxe delivered
an opinion that contained perhaps the most eloquent endorsement ever written
about Mergenthaler * s invention. After reviewing the history of previous compos-
ing machines, Coxe wrote:

Neither singly nor combined could they do the work of the Mergenthaler
machine. The skilled artisan would study them in vain for any suggestion of
a "linotype." The idea is not there. The patents, then, were not anticipated.
The court has no doubt that it involved invention to construct the patented
machine. No one who has seen this wonderful machine, which, in operation,
seems almost human, can doubt the truth of this proposition.

Judge Coxe held that Mergentha ler * s patents should be lioerally and broadly con-
strued so as to "hold as infringers all who produce 'a linotype* by similar or

equivalent combinations." He concluded that "Mergenthaler has made an invention

44

of unusual merit and is entitled to reap the reward."

Litigation over the combination machine finally ended in 1894. In an

appellate court decision, Rogers Typograph Company v. Mergenthaler Linotype

Company, 64 F. 799 (1894), Judge Marcus Acheson affirmed a New Jersey district

court decision favoring the Mergenthaler company. Acheson drew upon the Coxe

45

decision as he called Mergenthaler ' s combination "novel."

That decision was not the end of the Rogers-Mergenthaler controveries .
The prospect of serious litigation over the spaceband had become "more and more
threatening" to the Mergenthaler company in 1893. President Philip T. Dodge
pressed inventor Mergenthaler for a practical substitute for the double-wedge
spaceband then being challenged by the Rogers interests. Dodge said the company
considered the justifying device "an essential and necessary part of the
machine, without which it would br inoperative." Dodge threatened to withhold
royalty payments to Mergenthaler unless the Linotype was a "complete machine"
free of infringements. In response to these commands, Mergenthaler developed

ERIC

21

20

a single-wedgt: spacer with graduated steps and included rhis device in over 200
Linotypes he built at Baltimore. The new wedge did not work satisfactorily and
Mergenthaler even admitted in his Biography that his "earnest and persistent
efforts to invent [a substitute device] had not so far been crowned with
success

Dodge's agitation, of course, stemmed from a legal salvo fired by the
Rogers company. Rogers filed an infringement suit in a federal circuit court
over the use of the spaceband. He sought an injunction, but Judge Marcus
Acheson denied it in the preliminary hearing. In Rogers Typographic Company v.
Mergenthaler Linotype Company, 58 F. 693 (1893), Acheson acknowledged that the
previous interference proceedings over the spaceband at the Patent Office had
favored Schuckers over Mergenthaler. He stressed that a judicial determination
on the spaceband inTringement issue would have to involve consideration of the
"state of the art" at the time the contenders invented the mechanism. As a
further ground against issuing even a preliminary injunction, Acheson wrote
that such a ban against the Mergenthaler company "wo'ild cause serious injury"
in view of its established business. To complainant Rogers, the injunction
denial would cause "no irreparable damage" because he was not manufacturing a
machine using the Schuckers patent. A final determination was to be made "on
full proofs" at a later hearing."

Rogers might have then sensed that further pursuit of an infringement
injunction in a federal court would be futile. No citation has been found to
indicate that any final hearing was held. Rogers, though, still held a
powerful weapon to use against the Mergenthaler company: that 1891 Patent
Office interference decision declaring that Schuckers was the first inventor
of ::he double-wedge spaceband. In mid-1894 Rogers began to attack the Mergen-

22

21

thaler firm in a method that must have sounded some loud alarms in Brooklyn.
Rogers filed infringement complaints against two Detroit newspapers, the Free
Press and the Evening News , and threatened to bring suit against 100 or more
newspapers using double-wedge spacebands in their Linotypes. The threats would
obviously create a furore among current and prospective Linotype usors.
Publishers would understandably be bitter against the Mergenthaler company if
an injunction forced them to revert to hand composition or to have their Lino-
types converted to use an inferior spacing wedge that did not infringe upon the
Schuckers spaceband patent.

Rogers* intentions stirred the ANPA to report the controvery. It circu-
lated to its members a Minneapolis Times article, "Big Suit in Sight," stating
that Rogers claimed^^

the spacing devices [used on the Detroit Linotypes] are the invention of
Jacob[s] W. Schuckers of Philadelphia. . . . The Mergenthaler Company con-
tested the issuance of the patent to Schuckers* invention, but the matter
was decided against it.

The ANPA became even more concerned a month later when it advised its members

49

that the pending Rogers suits

raised the question among Publishers as to what form of protection or
guarantee the Mergenthaler Co. should give to papers using or contemplating
the use of their machines. All expression of opinion from all members on
this subject is earnestly desired in hopes that through the ideas thus
garnered, some form of agreement may be arrived at with the Mergenthaler
Co. that at least will protect the members of the association.

Subsequent bulletins did not reveal what measures, if any, the ANPA undertook

after publishing that notice in September 1894.

The Mergenthaler Acquisition
The spaceband controversy ended abruptly a year later. In mid-1895
the Mergenthaler company bought out the Rogers firm for $415,000.^^ ANPA

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23

22

bulletins, newspaper indexes, Fourth Estate and Inland Printer yielded no leads
to any negotiation in the months preceding the consummation of the deal. It is
entirely possible that the Rogers company carried out its threats to file in-
fringement suits against other Linotype users. The Linotype's single-wedge
spacer proposed by Mergenthaler was an unsatisfactory substitute for his
double-wedge spaceband whose patent rights had been contested by Schuckers/
Rogers. Newspaper owners likely made strong corrplaints to the Margenthaler company,
complaints so loud that purchase of the Schuckers patent became tlie only
plausible solution. The complaints would have been justifiable, for by then
over 2,500 Linotypes had been installed at nearly 400 printing offices or news-
papers in the United States.

In addition to the spaceband rights and the Rogers compary itself, the
acquisition included the rights to Rogers' machines. Fourth Estate described
the entire transaction as "a significant sale," revealing that only a small
portion of the Rogers indebtedness would be paid out of the proceeds. Stock-
holders were to receive the balance "amounting to about 10 cents on the
dollar. "51 Manufacture of the Rogers machines was discontinued with the move of
the factory equipment from Detroit to Brooklyn.

The surprise ending came with the announcement that Rogers would
figuratively cross the line from foe to friend. He joined the Mergenthaler
staff, spending the rest of his life as consulting engineer and inventor in
charge of the Brooklyn experimental department.

'T^^ New York Tribune reported that the transaction "would put an end to
expensive litigation, and probably increase the business of manufacturing type

CO

machines." ^ (It did both.) The ANPA commented: "Members are all doubtless
cognizant though the medium of the press dispatches, of the purchase by the

24

23

53

Mergenthaler Company of the Rogers Company."

The Mergenthaler company's annual report for 1895 is not available (and

one wonders what Dodge told the stockholders about the transaction). The ANPA,

however, incorporated in a contemporary bulletin a Mergenthaler company notice

stating that it had purchased the patents "mainly for the purpose of protecting

publishers and relieving them from any fears." Tiie company said it guaranteed

"to protect any and every user of its machines against any claim for infringe-

54

ment frov. any source."

By the 1896 Mergenthaler annual meeting, Dodge could say that "the
wisdom of th.- purchase of the Schuckers-Rogers patents had been confirmed in
many ways."^^ Although he did not explain his statement, the "wisdom" probably
stemmed from the realization that the firm could now continue to build and mar-
ket the Linotype with the proven and accepted spacing device. The company con-
tinued to grow as it manufactured an average of 850 Linotypes during the next
15 years. And since the double-wedge spaceband was an indispensable part of
the Linotype, the acquisition of Schuckers* 1892 patent protected the integrity
of the machine (at least in that aspect) until after the patent had run its
course of 17 years.

To Mergenthaler, Rogers, like his machine was persona non grata. His
Biography did not identify Rogers by his full name. Mergenthaler was obviously
perturbed by the amount of the Rogers payment ($415,000) to which he applied
both sarcasm~"enormous sum"— and irony— "modest little sum." The price, he
wrote, was more than twice as much as the royalties he had received for his
machines up to 1898 "and probably more than he or his family would ever be able
to collect for his invention."^ (Royalties eventually paid to Mergenthaler
and his heirs reached an estimated $1.5 million. )

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25

24

In his nearly 40 years at the Mergenthaler company, Rogers developed

many significant improvements to the Linotype, among them the basic system for

setting tables. Additionally, his linecasting Typograph formed the basis for

the company's Junior Linotype introduced in 1902 in a renewed effort to

supplant the use of typesetters with Linotypes.

After Rogers' death in 1934 at the age of 77, the Dictionary of Ameri-

58

can Biography credited him with

broadening the scope and increasing the usefulness of Mergenthaler ' s
original . . . Linotype. He considered thousands of ideas submitted by
machinists and operators and developed and refined those that were worth
while, making them conunercial ly profitable. In the course of his many
years he patented between 400 and 500 devices in the field of composing
machines. He was one of the few inventors whose ability yielded due
financial reward, and this he used largely for the education of yomg
people.

Schuckers, whose spaceband patent had been used as a threat to impede

the progress of the Linotype, was not an active player in the maneuvers

involving his invention. At an early date he had sold his patent application

59

rights to Rogers for what the latter described as a "very small amount.'*
Schuckers was 61 when his justifier patent was finally granted. He died nine
years later in 1901 while serving as secretary of the New Jersey commission
of the Pan-American Exposition.

Rogers' linecasti'^.g Typograph, barred in the United States for many
years because of the infringement injunction, was considered a successful
machine in Canada, England and on the Continent. After the expiration of
certain Linotype patents, U.S. manufacture resumed again about 1907 and con-
tinued for about five years. Because of its size, performance and slower speed,
the Typograph was used largely by weeklies and small dailies. No estimates
are available as to the number of machines manufactured in the United States.
Historians Legros and Grant reported, however, that in 1916 about 4,000 Typo-

26

25

giaphs were in use worldwide, out of an estimated grand total of 44,000
hot-metal composing machines.

Almost everyone benefited from the Mergenthaler company's purchase of
the Schuckers spaceband patent. Linotype users — principally newspapers — were no
longer placed on edge by threats of infringement suits and injunctions. The
Mergenthaler company proceeded to manufacture an expanded number of Linotypes
with that same threat removed. Rogers, who demonstrated business r men by
acquiring the patent and using it as a lever against the integrity of the Lino-
type, was able to sell his unsuccessful business and then fill an important
niche at his former competitor. Although Mergenthaler conplained about the amount
spent for Schuckers* spaceband patent rights, he and his family would receive
extensive royalties from machines built and sold unencurbered by that threat
of infringement. Mergenthaler company stockholders could rejoice, for removal
of this particular stumbling block would enhance the dividend payments that had
begun only the year before. Only Schuckers who had sold his patent rights to
Rogers at an early date, appeared to be the loser among those involved with,
the transactions.

Summary

The search for a successful mechanical way to compose printer's type
became, in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century, the passion of a loose
coterie of dedicated inventors. Fueled by the desire for speedier and cheaper
composition, they generated a spate of machines in several styles and with
varying prospects of success. The fittest survived, at least until they too
paled before the photocomposers of the next century.

U.S. r^jwsps^rs, of course, stood at the center of a potentially enor-

Er|c 27

26

mous market as they began to convert from hand to machine composition in the
late 1880s and 1890s. The Mergenthaler Linotype Company, in its quest to gain
and then retain superiority in an endeavor clamoring with competition, assidu-
ously defended its patents when they were challenged. It went to couic and won
injunctions barring John R. Rogers' combination Typograph from U.S. markets.
Yet when Rogers challenged the validity of Mergenthaler * s spaceband, an expensive
buyout became the strategy to forestall potential disruptions for Linotype
users. That move helped to insure the Linotype's preeminence in the field and
to place the machine in a monopoly position in the U.S. marketplace for well
over a dozen years. It aided the diffusion and adoption of this innovation.

Newspapers of the era were vitally concerned with the possibilities of
mechanized composition, and that topic abounded at conventions and in the trade
press of the day. Could a machine really do what handt only had done for 400
years? If so, which machine/process would do it the best in order to gain
faster and greater production, lower costs and higher profits? The "state of
the art" in those days was one of rapid and exciting growth and change. The
stakes — and the rewards — for a perfected composing machine were extremely high.

The Rogers-Mergenthaler controversies rose out of the confluence of
some of those challenges. For the inventors, protection though the federal
patent system could make or break a device. The system made a loser out of
Rogers' combination Typograph, at least in the United States, but it served
Rop,ers' ambitions in his challenge over the double-wedge spaceband. That the
Mergenthaler company would spend $415,000 to acquire Rogers' unprofitable
composing machine company and to eliminate the unnerving threat of Schuckers'
spaceband demonstrates the degree to which mechanization and competitive
forces had become entwined in the industry's economic and social fabrics.

28

27

Endnotes

^Nathan Rosenberg, "Technological Interdependence in the American
Economy," Technology and Culture 20 (January 1979): 25-50.

2

Everett M. Rogers and F. Floyd Shoemaker, Communication of Innvova-
tions , 2nd ea. (New York: Free Press, 1971), p25.

3

Lucien A. Legros and John C. Grant, Typographical Printing-Surfaces
(London: Longmans, Green, and Co.. 1916; reprint ed.. New York: Garland Pub-
lishing Co., 1980); Richard E. Huss, The Development of Printers' Mechanical
Typesetting Methods, 1822-1925 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia,
1973); James Moran, The Composition of Reading Matter (London: Wace & Co.,
1965); and John S. Thompson, History of Composing Machines (Chicago: Inland
Printer Co., 1904; reprint ed.. New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1980). See
also Richard E Huss, D /, Church's "Hoax" (Lancaster, Pa.: Graphic Crafts, 1976)
and Richard E Huss, The Printer's Composition Matrix (New Castle, Del.: Oak
Knoll Books, 1985).

L

^'Concerning Composition," New York Times , 11 August 1862, p5.

\he World article was reprinted in "Type-setting and Distribution
Machine Wanted," Scientific American 20 (29 May 1869):343. In an editorial
note, the magazine reported that "there is no machine for setting and dis-
tributing type that perfectly fills all the conditions required."

^Ottmar Mergenthaler, Biography of Ottmar Mergenthaler and History of
the Linotype (Baltimore: 1898), p20.

^Mergenthaler Printing Company, Annual Report, 1888 , p20.

^he growth and usage of the Linotype are described in George A.
Everett, "The Linotype and U.S. Daily Newspaper Journalism in the 1890' s"
(Ph.D. dissertation. University of Iowa, 1972); and Corban Goble, "The Obitu-
ary of a Machine: The Rise and Fall of Ottmar Mergenthaler ' s Linotype at U.S.
Newspapers" (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1984).

^rnrst B. Chamberlain, The Churchills of Oberlin (Oberlin, Ohio:
Oberlin Historical and Improvement Organization, 1965), pp45-46. Rogers was 18
years old when he graduated from both Berea and Oberlin in 1875.

^Sseorge lies. Leading American Inventors (New York: Henry Holt & Co.,
1912), pp430-31n.

^^ee James Eckman, The Heritage of the Printer (Philadelphia- North
American Publishing Co., 1965), pp21-25; and Vance Gerry, The Ernest A.
Lindner Collection of Antique Printing Machinery (Pasadena, Calif.: Weather
Bird Press, 197iy7yp35-36.

12

Henry L. Bullen, "The Typograph and the Monoline Machines," Inland
Printer 73 (April 1924) :65--67.

13

Mergenthaler, Biography , op. cit. , p54.

14

ANPA, Minutes of Annual Meet Lng, 1890 , pp57-59.

29

28

Bill of Complaint, Affidavits and Exhibits, The National Typographic
Company the New York Typograph Company et al, , ppl5-16. This booklet of
documents, hereafter cited as Bill of Complaint, is at the Library of Congress.
It presents only the Mergenthaler side.

^^ Ibid, , pl4,

^'••The Linotype,*' notice, first appearing in Inland Printer 7 (June
1890) :848; and Journalist 11 (21 June 1890): 16.

18

John H. Farrell, "Type-setting Machines," Journalist 11 (21 June

1890):12.

19

ANPA, Bulletin , No. 87, 4 October 1890.

20

"A Revolution in Printing," Scientific American 63 (20 September
1890): 176. By that time the magazine had published two comprehensive articles
about the Linotype, but nothing of the same nature about the Typograph.

21

•Larger Papers in Prospect," New York Times , 19 October 1890, plO.

22

First appearing in the Journalist 12 (15 November 1890): 16.

23

Mergenthaler, Biography , op. cit. , p56.

24

Bill of Complaint, op. cit. Of four connected cases, the first.
National Typographic Company v. New ^ork Typograph Company et al . , 44 F. 711
(1890), dealt not with infringement ^ Jt with the residency of the defendants.

^^ Ibid. , ppl2-13. ^^ Ibid. , pp56-58. ^^ Ibid. , ppl8, 21, 23-25.
28

The Press Publishing Company was one of the defendants. The Lacombe
decision was quoted extensively in "The Mergenthaler Wins," New York Tribune ,
12 March 1891, p5, and in "Type-Setting Machines — Important Patent Decision,"
Scientific American 64 (28 March 1891):201.

29

The decision was subsequently cited in several patent cases. One of
these was Wright Co. v. Herring-Curtis Co. et al. , 177 F. 257 (1910), in which
an injunction was granted based on the plaintiff's claim of prior public
acquiescence of its "heavier than air flying machines."

30

ANPA, Bulletin , No. 100, 21 March 1891.

31

"The Rogers Typograph," Inland Printer 8 (February 1891 ): 459-60.

32

P. D. Ross, "Type-casting Machines," Popula Science Monthly 40
(December 1891): 184.

^-'"By-then.Bye," Journalist 13 (2 May 1891):8.
34

"Machine Composition," New York Times , 15 January 1892, p3.

ERLC

30

29

^^"Type-setting Machines Combine," Journalist 15 (2 July 1892): 15.

"An Important Decision,'' New York Times , 11 December 1891, p2. Little
is known abo»'n the Electric Typograph. No description appears in histories by
Thompson, Legros and Grant, and Huss, an indication that it never reached a
marketable stage. The Times article indicated that the device was an
impression machine with an electrically operated keyboard that could activate
similar machines in other locations. Schuckers had assigned his patent to that
company, but there no evidence to show that this Typograph incorporated any
of his devices.

Ibid.

••By-the-Bye," Journalist 14 (20 February 1892^:8.

39

'*The Status of Machine Composition," editorial. Journalist 3 5 (2 July

1892) : 8.

40

"Type-setting Machines Combine," Journalist , 15 (2 July 1892): 15.

41

"The Rogers Typograph," advertisement. Inland Printer 10 (March

1893) :537.

42

"The Rogers Typograph," advertisement. Inland Printer 13 (April

1894) :13.

^^ANPA, Minutes of Annual Meeting, 1893 , p27.
44

Over a dozen federal cases have cited the Coxe decision, one judge
describing its principles as a "doctrine of pioneership" (Westinghouse v. New
York Air Brake Co., 59 F. 581 (1893)).

45

No citation has been located for the New Jersey case. Arguments were
heard in October 1891, according to "Millions Are Involved," New York Times ,
29 October 1891, pi.

^^ergenthaler , Biography , op. cit. , pp63-64. He said royalty payments
were delayed 11 months.

47

A six-line report of the denial appeared in "A Victory for the Lino-
type Company," New York Tribune , 30 November 1893, p9.

48

"Big Suit in Sight," Minneapolis Times article, probably 29 July
1894, quoted in ANPA, Bulletin , No. 276, 1 August 1894.

49

ANPA, Bulh tin . No. 281, 7 September 1894.

^^"Bought by the Linotype Company," New York Times , 16 July 1895, p8.
Mergenthaler , in his Biography , p65, said the sum was $416,000.

^^"Significant Sale," Fourth Estate 3 (18 July 1895):1.

ERLC

31

52

••Absorbing a Rival Company," New York Tribune , 17 June 1895, pl2.
^^ANPA, Bulletin , No. 335, 1) July 1895.
^\nPA, Bulletin , No. 349, 31 October 1895.
^^Mergenthaler Linotype Company, Annual Report , 1896 , p7.
^^Mergenthaler , Biography , op. cit . , pp64-66.

^^Thomas Dreier, The Power of Print — and Men (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Mergen-
thaler Linotype Company, 1936), p34,

58

Dictionary of American Biography , 1935 ed., vl6, ppl05-06. Rogers
was a trustee of both Berea and Oberlln colleges; both awarded him honorary
doctorates. To Berea College he donated funds for a dormitory and an art build-
ing in honor of his parents. He was instrumental in obtaining (or giving
several Linotypes and other printing equipment to the Berea College Press.
Rogers is buried at the Berea Cemetery, where his tombstone calls attention,
among other accomplishments, to his service as "Inventor and Perfecter of the
Linotype."

59

"John R. Rogers, Perfecter of the Linotype, Dies," New York Herald
Tribune , 19 February 1934.

^^Eckman, op. cit . , pp21-25. Eckman said a modernized Typograph was
built in Germany in the 1960s. At least two Typographs can be seen in museums.
They are located at the Lindner Press, Los Angeles, and the Henry Ford Museum
at Dearborn, Mich.

^Vegros and Grant, op . cit. , p572.

32

I

DOUBLE-WFDGE
SPACEBAND

Legros and Grant,
p231

At right....

JOHN R. ROGERS
Chamberlain, p45

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

31

ROGERS lYPOGRAPH
(combination model)

Inland Printer 9
(November 1891): 392

THE yiNOTYPE

TO PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS.

All kmmn Utmfpm MmMww, and iIm arMlvci thantnm, m C9v«
uJaSki iiS^JIK^^ W-mTmS-K* MlMr pirtMto i

Th9 mmfn^^md Om tlm mm t4 any wa«biM mhUth raMa, at
a anliaUiMii |«r m m m hU tnm, ItauiyHa ar lyiia Imrm aadi liMirlaic ib«

rar fall iaiariiiailan aMraaa, «r viak faratmally.

j THE MBUKBNTHALBK PKINTING CO.,

I lg'4 Nai»«u%i Str^tH. - NIDW YORK CIXY.

PATENT NOTICE ADVERTISEMENT
Inland Printer 7 (June 1890): 848

MERGENTHALER LINOTYPE

Inland Printer 9
(November 1891) : 391

ROGERS TYPOGRAPH
(impression-type model)

Eckman, p23

ERIC

33

• Advertisement from Inland Printer 13 (A-ril 1894): 13 32
(promoting the impression-type process after the combination model was barred)

THE WS TYPOGSflPH

THE COMPOSING ROOM — THE DETROIT JOURNAL.

R ^odel Tj^po^roph TV^aobine Offioe.

In JOl working days in \Q9h ten machines, including one headline machine, in this office

set for the paper 57,81 J,000 ems.

The value of the same at Union scale is ... . ^20,81 2.68

The cast of the machine composition was .... 9,005.67

Gain over hand compsition was • 10,907.01

Oiilsidt" woik done '"as 5)4.45

Total savinjfs ^1 M41T4O

Ihi.N is from tirst machines ever made of this kind.

OUR LATER AND IMPROVED MACHINES are capable of doing 2$ to per cent better,
according to the skill of the operators.

General Offices: DETHOIT, MICH. Shops: CIiEVEIiAJlD, OHIO.